"the
USA did not overthrow Allende, the CIA only helped with the
propaganda".
Dave López, USA army official.

25
years later.

A quarter of century after
the installation of the Chilean dictatorship that modified the
Chilean democratic history emerge declassified files to detail
the atrocities committed by Augusto Pinochet and the intervention
of the USA government and transnational companies in Chile's
events.

Why should must count the
murdered, the tortured? We know that there were many and many
also the apportioned tears in thousands of Chilean homes and by
the same fatherland - in fact, the number was prepared from
Santiago to Henry Kissinger, USA's Secretary of State in a
memorandum, titled Chilean Executions, based on
intelligence sources, that estimated in 1500 the "total of
deads". In the subsequent weeks and months, the deaths and
disappearances surpassed 3,200, according to the Rettig
Commission.

Even though many secret
files are hidden in USA, there's and advance little by little in
the declassification of some of them under the Information
Freedom Law and other procedures; other source of information
have been the Spain courts, where is sought to process those who
committed crimes against Spanish citizens during that period.
President Clinton's government recently delivered to Spanish
researchers some boxes with files, especially on the role played
by the DINA, the Chilean secret policeman, in the murder of
Orlando Letelier and his United States citizen secretary Ronni
Moffitt in 1976 in Washington, DC. Such files describe the
pathetic events that began with the election of Allende in
September 1970, the 1973 coup d'état and the first dictatorship
years.

Among the most outstanding
revelations are:

The CIA performed
hidden operations in Chile in 1970s autumn with the purppose of
stimulating the curent's president "machismo", Eduardo
Frei (father), and to induce it thus to block the ratification of
Salvador Allende electoral victory. According to the United
States files, Frei accepted, but at the last moment he refused to
carry on the plan.

- Between 1970 and 1973,
Richard Nixon's government ordered USA officials to prevent loans
from the Inter-American Development Bank, the World Bank and the
Exim Bank to Chile, with the objective of injuring the Chilean
economy and the image of President Salvador Allende.

After Allende's
election, United States thought about the possibility of
expelling Chile of the Organization of American States (OAS) (as
they made with Cuba in the decade of the 60's). According to
Department of State cables, the USA ambassador in Chile, Edward
Korry, believed that the general secretary of the OAS, Rooster
Beacon, was an "incompetent fatuous", since he thaught
that Chile "was not Cuba and Allende was not Fidel".

USA government knew
about the accomplished crimes during the subsequent days to the
coup d'état, but even so it authorized immediately new economic
help for Chile and ordered hidden CIA operations "to improve
the image of the military junta".

The daily Human
Rights violations in Chile, provoked that in 1975 several
officials of the USA embassy and the Department of State's
Political Planning office requested to cut the economic help and
to fight Pinochet's government, nevertheless the opinnion of the
ambassador and the Penthagon officials and the Department of
Treasure won, they wished to strengthen their relationships with
the dictatorship.

General Pinochet
requested to visit Presidente Gerald Ford, in August 1975, but
White House officials feared that that meeting could
"stimulate the critique (to the president) in the United
States and in Latin America". To avoid problems, the
National Security Council recommended the new ambassador, David
Popper, to explain to the Chilean government "that the
president agenda was already occupied".

In the titled fileChilean
presidential election postmortem, prepared by the CIA for the
National Security counselor, Henry Kissinger, in November 1970,
it was established that "Salvador Allende election can not
be blame of a lack of warning on time". In 1968, the CIA
analysts predicted that Salvador Allende's Popular Unit coalition
would win by first time. 25th March, 27th June and 7th August
1970, Kissinger presided meetings of the "Committee
40", a top-level intersecretarial group. 18th August, the
Department of State delivered to the White House a policy and
strategy Review of United States in case of a victory of Salvador
Allende. "We do not identify vital United States
interests in Chile", concluded that evaluation. "Upon
examining the potential threat that Allende represents, it is
important to bear in mind the problems anticipated for the United
States in case of his election emerge independently of who will
be converted into the next president of Chile".

The USA reports
estadunidenses demonstrate a hysterical attitude before the
results of the elections of 4th September 1970. A dozen cables
were written by ambassador Korry -defined by the Department of
State as "Korrygrams" by his peculiar language and his
anti-diplomatic opinions arrived to Washington. That day,
Korry sent not less than 18 updates about the votes counting-up.

Some examples:
-On 5th September he informed that he could listen "the
allendistas growing roar, who acclaimed their victory" in
the streets.

-"We have suffered a
painful defeat" wrote Korry, blaming the Popular
Unity victory on the demochristians political "poverty"
and on the right-wing high class "arrogant stupidity
myopia" .

-"The leadership
depends on, if I can say it in spanish, cabeza, corazón y
cojones" ("head, heart and balls"),
enden Korry in his cable. "In Chile they only count on chácharas"
("trinkets").

On 9th September, a secret
cable titled A sole hope to Chile, Korry argued that
"Chile's future would be decided by a sole man: Frei. I
think he's playing his cards with extraordinary astuteness in
these circumstances".

Korry underestimated
Chilean people capacity ability to democratically choose because
in a 22th Septiembre cable, titled Frei: Processing future ,
Korry described the prsident as "the cental figure",
whose "movements "movimientos determine the rythm, the
direction and the shape of a situation that has more fluctuations
than the 99.99% of chileans know".

The CIA would put into
practice more energical operations in order to pressurize Frei.
"The CIA launched a propaganda campaign and linked political
action, appointed to incite as to charm Frei" so he could
join the "called Frei's re-electionist manoeuvre",
according to the declassified Report about activities of CIA's
working group in Chile.

The political action
program had "a sole goal", acording to CIA director,
Richard Helms, to the national Security Council: "Incite
president Frei to prevent Allende's election by the Congress,
24th October, and, if that fails, to support a military coup that
would prevent Allende taking up posession". The task,
according to CIA, was "re-build Frei again as a political
personality and grant him a role that demands resolution and
'machismo' in a grade that, so far, he has evaded".

CIA's pressures over Frei
included the offer of a big money figure for his
"re-election" campaign, bribe his demochristians
like-minded in order to support Frey and were opposed to Allende,
organize visits and calls of foreign respected leaders. In an
effort to influence the chilean president through his wife, the
CIA instigated the delivery of telegrams, diraddressed to her,
from women's groups in other latinamerican countries, as also
newspaper articles payed by the CIA and published all over the
world about the danger Chile faced with Allende's election. the
previous made part of a hidden propaganda campaign that, CIA
showed, generated 726 notes and editorials against a possible
Allende's Pressidency.

The FUBELT project.

These operations failed.
Frei refused to use his influence over the Christian Democratic
Party to block Allende's ratification in the congress and Allende
would have win the election.

The great CIA efforts to
promote a military coup -known as Track II were revealed by
the Select Commitee of the Senate, headed by Senator Frank
Church, at the middle of the seventies. This is the first time,
nevertheless, that become public CIA files about "the FUBELT
Project", the key name for the hidden operations whose only
goal was destabilize the Popular unity government and to
encourage a military riot.

For instance, a secret
memorandum, titled Fubelt Project Genesis, dated on 16th
September 1970, registers the first CIA meeting to analize the
operations in Chile. "Presidente Nixon had decided that an
Allende government in Chile was not acceptable for the United
States", said Helms to Planning Board officials CIA's
hidden operations section and the Western Hemisphire
Division. "The presidente asked the Agency to prevent
Allende arriving the power or remove him".

In testimony before the
Congress and in his memories, Kissinger assured that the CIA's
coup planning was "turned off" in 15th October, before
the murder of chilean military commandant René Schneider. But a
top-secret memorandum about the 15th October meeting between
Kissinger, Thomas Karamessines, CIA's operations underdirector,
and General Alexander Haig, confirms that the national security
assesor ordered: "The Agency must continue keeping pressure
over each Allende's weak point: now,after 24th October, after 5th
November and in the future, until new mobilization orders are
given".

A secret cable sent the
next day from the CIA headquarters to its station chief in
Santiago, Henry Hecksher, affirmed: "It is a firm and
continous position that Allende will be removed by a coup...
before 24th October. But the efforts in this sense will continue
on vigorously after this date. WE'll continue applying the
maximum pressure on this goal, using evry propper resource".

Destroying Chilean democracy.

During Allende's
government, the CIA carried on its effort to encourage a coup
d'ètat atmosphere in Chile. For example, funds were covertly
channeled toward the Chilean legislative elections previous
campaigns, to reinforce the anti-allendistas politicians,
according to a political action deceits compendium, yet strongly
censured, that was prepared by the CIA director, William Colby,
two days after September 1973 copu d'ètat.

Yet more important it's
the fact that the CIA presented secretely a grant of 1.5 million
dollars to El Mercurio newspaper, an operation that,
according to the CIA files, "performed an important to
prepare the scene of the militay coup d'ètat of September 11,
1973".

Hiddens agents had also
near links with unhappy Chilean military officials. To maintain
soldiers nervous, the CIA "sowed" untruthful
propaganda, in which they insinuateed that the Chilean left-wing
was planning to take up the control of the armed forces;
according to the report of the Select Committee of the Senate,
the CIA even prepared lists of Allende sympathizers so that they
would be apprehended in case the soldiers took the power.

"Track II was never
really suspended", testified Thomas Karamessines, the
official commisioned of the CIA operations in Chile, before the
Select Comitee of the Senate in 1975. "What we were
requested to do was to carry on our efforts. Keep us alert and
make everything we could in order to contribute to a contingent
fulfillment of Track II objectives and purposes".

The CIA operations
constitutued the hidden branch that United States officials
called a "triad" of political attempts for Chile.

The public proposal
according to a National Security memorandum, titled Politics
toward Chile was defined as a "correct but
cold" diplomatic posture. The opened hostility, warned
secret strategy files, prepared for Kissinger the day of
Allendes's takeover, "would help Allende to fulfil his goal
of unifying the Chilean people against a "foreign
demon".

The third branch of the
United states policy has been called the "invisible
boycott" of loans and credits to Chile. During years,
historians have discussed if such boycott existed or if Allende's
socialistic policies resulted on the loss of those credits. But
files of the National Security Council show that Nixon's
government quickly moved to cancel the multilateral and bilateral
foreign help to Chile, before Allende might have fulfilled a
month in the Presidency.

In the Inter-American
Development Bank, the National Security Council simply informed
the United States representative that he had no authorization to
vote in favor of loans for Chile. According to a secret report,
prepared for Kissinger several weeks after Allende's takeover,
"the executive director for the United States before the IDB
understands that he can stay without instructions until new
notice on pending loans to Chile. As it requires an affirmative
United States vote to authorize the loan ... this will prevent
its approval".

In the World Bank, United
States officials worked covertly to achieve Chile would be
disqualified for an improvement cattle credit, of 21 million
dollars, and future loans. Unable to simply veto the loans, the
Department of State's Inter-American Affairs Office prepared a
group of questions so that a delegation of the World Bank made
them to the authorities in Santiago, in an effort to show that
Allende economic policies did not comply with the criteria to
receive credits. "The executive director will transmit these
questions to the bank personal, in a routine and discreet
way", noted another National Security Council report,
"so that they receive adequate attention by the group visits
Chile and by other assesors within the bank, but without noting
the United States government hand in this process".

As well, the president of
the Export-Import Bank accepted "to fully co-operate"
with the State for Inter-American Affairs undersecretary, Charles
Meyer, in the suspension of new credits and financial guarantees
for Chile.

Nixon's government also
proceed to isolate diplomatically Allende's government worldwide.
Strategic files elaborated by an intersecretarial work group
presented to Kissinger at the beginning of December, 1970,
informed on "conferences of the government of the United
States with Latin American governments chosen... to promote the
adoption of our preoccupations on Chile". A 26 pages study
made a serious consideration about the possibility of compelling
Chile to leave or be expelled of the Organization of American
States. The analysts concluded, however, that "such tactics
can result counteractive, for the lack of support and
friendliness from other OAS members", in an obvious
reference to Mexico.

"Destiny day".

"Chile's coup d'ètat
was almost perfect", asserts a report of the United States
military group in Valparaíso. The report, written by lieutenant
colonel of the Marine Infantry Patrick Ryan, qualified September
11, 1973, as Chile's "destiny day" and "our D
Day".

The warm receipt
Washington gave to the military junta was the antithesis of its
rapprochement to the Popular Unity government. A National
Security Mandate, signed by Kissinger in November 9, 1970, called
the United States "to increase the pressures on Allendes's
government to prevent its consolidation". Toward Pinochet,
the United States policy was designed to alleviate the pressure
on the generals, so that they could quickly consolidate their
power.

According to a CIA
compendium, prepared for Kissinger two days after the coup, the
Committee 40 had authorized hidden operations to "denigrate
Allende and his Popular Unity coalition".

Thus, the CIA helped the
junta to write the White Book of government change in Chile,
to justify the coup; paid the military spokesmen trips around the
world to promote the image of the new government; used their own
means to throw a positive light on the junta, and financed the
new advisors of the military men to prepare a new economic plan.

Publicly, Nixon's White
House supported the junta opening the key of the economic help to
alleviate the foods shortage in Chile. Three weeks after the
coup, Nixon's government authorized 24 million dollars in credits
to buy wheat (the same that he had been denied to the government
of the Popular Unity) and was planning to transfer two destroyers
to the Chilean navy.

The secret report also
asserted that Pinochet had rejected "any date to return
cicvlians to the power".

Failed in Human Rights.

"Internationally, the
repressive image of the junta continues flogging it", says a
report for Kissinger, dated November 16, 1973. Informations about
massive detentions the United States intelligence estimated
the number in 13,500, summary executions, torture and
disappearances, appeared in the international press almost
immediately after the coup.

Declassified cables of the
United States embassy in Chile show that Nixon's government was
worried mainly about the execution of the United states citizens
Charles Horman and Frank Terruggi, in the National Stadium. Their
deaths constituted a "difficult situation to public
relationships", as said a cable dated October 21, 1973. The
Kubisch report to Kissinger realized about "hard"
criticals in the informative media and investigations of the
United States Congress on those cases. In February, 1974, the
same undersecretary Kubisch spoke about those executions with
Chilean chancellor Manuel Huerta, according to a declassified
memorandum, "in the context of the need of being careful
relatively small topics of our relationship do not make more
difficult our cooperation".

The files show,
nevertheless, that the continuous violations to the human rights
were converted in the dominant topic of the United States - Chile
relationships.

For 1975, in the Congress
as well as in the same United States executive branch, human
rights advocates were criticizing with hardness the continuous
support that gave Gerald Ford's government to the dictatorship.

For example, a
confidential memorandum of the National Security Council, dated
July 1º, 1975, revealed the existence of a riot in the United
States embassy. According to a memorandum prepared for the
national safety advisor Brent Scowcroft, "several officials
of the embassy in Santiago have written a protest text", the
one which was "strongly supported by the office of Political
Planning Planeación of ALTAR (the area of Department of state's
Inter-American Affairs) and is requested to cut all the economic
and military help to Chile until human rights situation may have
improved".

A declassified cable,
informs about a copnversation between Chilean Economic
Coordination Minister, Raúl Sáez, and Ambassador Popper, in
April 6th, 1975, reveals how those "protests" were
displayed. Popper said that "the most difficult problem we
had in our embassy had to do with tortures. The root of the
problem, it seemed to me, was DINA's absolute power to make what
it wanted in the detention and suspects managing".

Sáez answered that
"I had objected before Pinochet the DINA acts, without much
success up until now".

Reports of the United
States intelligence seem to strengthen the affirmations of the
now incarcerated chief of the DINA, Manuel Contreras, in the
sense of the fact that General Pinochet had an extraordinary
control over the secret policeman operations. A report of the
Intelligence Agency of the Defense, dated April 15, 1975, titled The
DINA expands its operations and facilities, refered clearly
about his relationships: "Since the promulgation of the
Decree of Law 521, that officially established the DINA as the
national intelligence arm of the government, Colonel Contreras
has informed exclusively president Pinochet and receives orders
only from he".

Files taken from the
server http://www.seas.gwu.edu/archive belong to the National
Security Archive.